Firefly Cove

by Davis Bunn

  Asha had never been in the president’s office before. She was surprised at how grand it all looked. The outer office was vast, the waiting area large enough for three different groups to sit in relative privacy. Dino was waiting for her there, seated in a leather sofa by the side window. “You’re on time. Excellent.”

  “Why are we here?”

  Dino managed to talk and type at the same time. “Events have reached the point where the administration needs to be alerted to the Benoit situation.”

  Asha repeated, “The Benoit situation.”

  “Right.” He cut off the phone and slipped it into his pocket. “Do you want a coffee or something?”

  “A water would be nice.”

  Dino rose and crossed to a kitchen alcove. He pulled a bottle from the small fridge and returned. “I think you should be the one to speak here.”

  She nodded. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

  “It’s not just because you’re Luke’s therapist. You handle the entire situation better than I ever could. Something about Luke sets me off.”

  “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

  “Liar.” He smiled and leaned in closer. “Changing the subject. You know my family owns the Barbieri Vineyard.”

  “Of course.”

  “They’re having a family gathering this weekend. My older brother’s daughter has gotten engaged. They want you to come.”

  “You told your family about me?”

  “I told my sister you were taking me for a hike. Word spread through the family system. You might have heard the drums.”

  “I didn’t take you anywhere. You dragged me up and carried me back down.” She felt the rest of the room recede. “Your family wants to meet me?”

  “It will probably be awful,” Dino warned. “They’ll crowd around you and ask every imaginable question, all of them far too personal and extremely embarrassing.”

  “They sound lovely,” Asha replied. “Of course I’ll come.”

  Dino started to reach for her hand, then pulled back. “Saturday I’m speaking at a medical convention in LA. I’ll overnight at some hotel near the conference and drive straight to the family place Sunday morning. Can you meet me there?”

  The idea took shape before Dino had even finished speaking. “What time is your conference over?”

  “I should be done by six.” Dino’s handsome features tightened with very real concern. “Asha, I have to warn you, my family will show you all the polite decorum of an invading horde.”

  “I’m certain I will love every minute. And I’m already excited about the chance to know this aspect of your world.”

  He studied her for a long moment, then said softly, “I wish I could kiss you.”

  “Funny, I was thinking the exact same thing,” Asha replied. “If I can arrange things with my folks, would you like to have dinner Saturday at my home?”

  Dino’s response was cut off by the secretary. “Dr. Barbieri, the president will see you now.”

  CHAPTER 46

  Patrick Roland, the president of Cal Poly, had formerly been CEO of a bank based in San Francisco. Roland was as polished as a flesh-colored gemstone. His silver hair was razor cut, his suit tailored, his tie woven with the school colors. Even his frown seemed to gleam. “Perhaps it would be best if you gave it to us from the top, Dr. Barbieri.”

  “I will allow my associate to respond,” Dino replied. “Asha Meisel has served as Benoit’s therapist for the past several months.”

  Ron James, head of the alumni department, demanded, “You had no idea your patient was going to blow up in our faces like this?”

  “Ron, please. Let’s hear what they have to say.”

  “Jessica Wright is the university’s largest donor. We’ve spent years working our way into her good graces. Now Dr. Barbieri informs us that everything we’ve done is being threatened—”

  “Ron.”

  “—by some nut? Will somebody please tell me how this happened without anybody knowing?”

  “That’s enough.” Roland turned to Asha. “Ms. . . .”

  “Meisel.”

  “Summarize for us what is going on here.”

  The meeting held a different tone than the peer review, but in many respects they were very much the same. Asha and Dino were isolated on one side of an oval conference table meant to hold twenty. Across from them, the university president was flanked by Dean Rhea and Ron James. These three, Asha knew, held the power to crush her professional ambitions.

  Yet as she summarized Luke’s third suicide attempt and the subsequent change in his character, Asha felt as though she listened to herself from a very great distance. It was impossible that she could sound so, well, professional. Her delivery was precise, calm, swift. She did not defend. Which, of course, was how she would have expected to handle this situation. She completed the overview in less than ten minutes. Then she waited.

  Naturally, Ron James exploded the instant she finished. “Let me get this straight.”

  “Ron, please . . .”

  “Look. I have the right to know—”

  “Actually, you don’t. Not yet anyway. I invited you here for information purposes only. If you insist upon continuing with these outbursts, I will be forced to ask you to leave.”

  The warning had the effect of stifling the alumni chief. But the effort of staying silent turned his face beet red. Which Dean Rhea found mildly amusing, or so it seemed to Asha. Only then did she realize her calm delivery and the alumni director’s outburst had changed, well, everything.

  Rhea and Roland were on her side.

  Roland seemed to confirm this impression by asking, “So you think your patient has, what, a split personality?”

  Dean Rhea surprised them all by saying, “Actually, that would explain a lot. The Luke Benoit I’ve recently dealt with was not the same student as before.”

  Roland said, “Elaborate, please.”

  Rhea hesitated. “Off the record?”

  “Nothing we discuss will leave this room.” Roland turned to his left. “Is that completely clear, Ron?”

  The alumni chief must have detected the same trace of steel as Asha, for he merely said, “Clear.”

  Rhea said, “I have long felt that Benoit used the accident that cost him his parents as just another in a long line of excuses. He played the perpetual victim better than any student I’ve had contact with.”

  Roland said, “You didn’t force his hand.”

  “I didn’t feel that I could. He was utterly alone in the world. I responded to his latest request and gave him another semester off. But I also warned him that if he didn’t make substantial progress on an independent project, I would be reviewing his situation. We met earlier this week.”

  “And?”

  “Like I said, I confronted an entirely different individual.” Rhea seemed to wrestle with herself for a moment, then added, “He astonished me.”

  Roland leaned back. “‘Astonished’?”

  “He was precise in his comments. He had hired an attorney to assist him in the project. What was more, he had studied accounting on his own. He’s now enrolled in a graduate-level finance class for the summer term. The professor checked him out and confirmed he was ready. This, after almost flunking him last year.”

  Roland cast his gaze at the ceiling. Pondering.

  Then the alumni chief took the silence as his chance. “I don’t get any of this.” He stabbed the air between himself and Asha. “You’ve watched him go through three suicide attempts and we’re only talking about this now?”

  Dino said, “Actually, Ms. Meisel has only been his therapist for six sessions.”

  “Eight,” Asha quietly corrected.

  “Luke Benoit has changed therapists four times in the past two years,” Dino finished. “If Ms. Meisel had not established this level of trust, we would not know anything about his recent actions.”

  “Well, we know now,” James barked. “The guy is a menace. Lock him up!
”

  Roland lowered his gaze. “Can that be arranged?”

  Asha gave Dino a chance to respond. When he remained silent, she addressed the dean seated directly opposite her. “You’ve seen how he acts. Say we took him to court and sought an injunction to have him placed in the mental ward.”

  “We wouldn’t stand a chance,” Rhea declared.

  Roland asked, “Did you say he’d hired an attorney?”

  “Sol Feinnes,” Asha replied.

  “Oh, man.” Ron James rubbed his face. “Could this get any worse?”

  Roland went back to studying the ceiling. This time the room waited with him. Finally he said, “All right. Ms. Meisel, what would you suggest as our course of action?”

  “Call Jessica Wright. Explain the situation. There isn’t really much else we can do at this stage.”

  Roland dropped his gaze. “‘At this stage.’”

  “Right. There is considerable disagreement over many elements of DID, as split personality is known nowadays. But most professionals agree on this one issue. Sooner or later, the patient will be confronted with some external event that challenges the lie he has constructed to support this new version of reality. And when that happens . . .”

  Ron James demanded, “What?”

  “They fall apart,” Dino said. “A complete and utter meltdown.”

  Meyer rapped his knuckles on the table. “In that case, we have every reason to contact Mrs. Wright and alert her to this risk.”

  “I’ll handle this,” Ron James said.

  Roland appeared ready to argue, but after a moment’s hesitation he merely said, “Urge Mrs. Wright for her own safety to avoid any further contact with Benoit.”

  Rhea said, “What about all the time when he’s not with you? He sees you, what, once a week?”

  “Twice.”

  “So what happens if this meltdown occurs when he’s off on his own? We need someone to help us monitor this guy.”

  “Difficult,” Dino said. “Luke Benoit is a loner. He feeds on isolation.”

  Asha said, “Actually, I do have one person who could help.”

  Ron James slapped the table. “And I’m telling you that’s not enough! We’ve got two ongoing projects costing us thirty-five million dollars, and they’re both dependent on Jessica Wright’s participation!”

  Roland nodded reluctantly. “What do you suggest?”

  “I’m not suggesting, I’m demanding! You put a harness on that kid and you rein him in!” Another stab across the table. “You order him to stay away from Ms. Wright. And if he won’t obey, you corral him in a padded room.”

  This time it was Dean Rhea. “Ron.”

  He took aim at the dean. “You say he’s enrolled for the summer? Fine. If he won’t obey, you kick him out.”

  Roland asked, “Is that even possible?”

  Rhea replied slowly, “A case could be made for his not having fulfilled his obligations as a student. He could be expelled.”

  “Do it,” Ron said. “Now. Today. Unless he agrees to stay away from Ms. Wright. Permanently. Not even a postcard.”

  Roland gave the ceiling another careful inspection. Then, “I need to alert our attorney.”

  “And the board of trustees,” Ron added. “They’ll be ready to hire a paid assassin, if that’s what it takes to keep our five-year building plan intact.”

  Roland sighed. “I will handle the board.”

  Ron redirected his ire at Asha. “And find somebody with more experience to handle this guy.”

  Dino’s tone hardened. “There is no one more capable than Ms. Meisel. I know that for a fact.”

  Ron James started to object, but Roland halted his next outburst with a single look. He then turned back to Asha and asked, “Now tell us about this outsider who might help us keep an eye on Benoit.”

  CHAPTER 47

  There was nothing in the therapist’s rule book, Asha reflected that Saturday afternoon, which came anywhere close to covering her present situation.

  Seated in a patient’s car, which happened to be a vintage Jaguar in pristine condition. A car she had not known even existed until the patient had pulled up in front of her door.

  The door in question being that to her private apartment.

  Driving to Los Angeles. With a GoCam positioned on the dash so as to monitor the patient while he drove.

  Discussing his contact with the university’s largest private donor.

  A contact which, from everything Asha had learned about the donor, was simply impossible. Because the recluse had not just seen Asha’s patient.

  Jessica Wright had invited the patient into her home.

  The home into which no one from the university had entered. Ever.

  What was more, the patient had spent the night.

  As Asha listened to Luke recount his meeting with Jessica Wright, and the home he described as a gargantuan monstrosity, she kept adding to the list.

  And there certainly was more to this inventory of impossibilities.

  Because they were not simply out for a Saturday drive. Oh, no.

  They were going to Los Angeles, because . . .

  Wait for it.

  Luke Benoit was going to church with Asha’s own grandmother.

  And Asha could not attend with them, because . . .

  Drumroll, maestro.

  Asha was having dinner with her parents tonight. And Dino. Who was already in LA for his conference. And then early Sunday they were turning around and driving back north because they were going to a family gathering at the Barbieri Vineyard.

  Asha resisted the urge to laugh out loud.

  It was a very good thing that she had the camera perched there on the dashboard, in order to catch everything she was probably missing.

  * * *

  It was then that Luke Benoit uttered what were quite possibly the only words that could have brought the moment fully into focus.

  He said, “I’m worried about you.”

  The car was not in any way modern. The leather seats did not form-fit her body like she was accustomed to. There was burl everywhere, so much wood the car’s interior resembled a rich man’s study. The steering wheel was large and an odd mix of wood and leather. The tires hummed over the freeway’s uneven surface. The engine gave off a soft growl.

  When Asha did not respond, he went on, “They are coming after me.”

  “Who, Luke?”

  “The university. Surely, you must have heard. Their attorney has been in touch with Sol Feinnes. The dean has called and threatened me with expulsion. Not to mention the professor saying she had to receive permission from the president before I can start the summer term.” He did not glance over once. His attention remained focused upon the road ahead. He kept his speed right at sixty. His grip on the steering wheel was far too tight. “Sooner or later, they are bound to view you as someone to blame.”

  Asha looked down at the notebook in her lap. She had not written one word since they had started off two hours ago. “Would you like me to drive?”

  “Why, am I doing something wrong?”

  “Not at all. It’s just, you seem very tense.”

  “Did you hear what I just said? I am worried that you might become caught up in the university’s maneuverings.”

  “Luke . . . Jessica Wright is Cal Poly’s largest individual donor. Of course they’re concerned.”

  “This goes far beyond being concerned. But that’s not the point.”

  “What is the point, then?”

  “They are doing this to stop me from seeing Jessica. That is not going to happen. Which means your own future could become threatened simply by being associated with me.”

  “Luke, can being in touch with this old woman really mean so much that you would risk your future?”

  He shot her a single glance. “I know you don’t believe me. I know all this is a charade of one form or another, as far as you and Barbieri are concerned.”

  “Luke—”

 
; “Hear me out.” He released one hand long enough to tap the steering wheel in time to his words. “Jessica Wright is the only aspect of my entire existence that holds any meaning whatsoever. If we are going to continue at all, you must accept this.”

  Asha was silenced as much by his manner of speech as the words, which in themselves were a shock. Luke spoke with an authority and stonelike resolve that simply did not fit with anything she knew about him.

  “I have always been a hardheaded businessman. I identify a problem. I study it. I find a solution. I put it in place,” he went on. “I work with allies who know and trust me. But all this is different now.”

  She managed to ask, “Different how?”

  “I have lost my business record. I am seen as a suicide risk. I have no one who trusts me. I am . . .”

  She finished, “You feel isolated.”

  “This is not about feelings. This is fact.”

  “What do you intend—”

  “I don’t know what to do. Jessica is sealed behind this fortress of money and power. She is isolated by choice and by past hurts. She is ill. She needs me. And I have no idea how to proceed. How to . . .”

  He was halted by the ringing of his phone. Luke fumbled it from his shirt pocket and handed it over. “Answer that, please.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “There are only a handful of people who know my number. It could be important.”

  She touched the tab. “Luke Benoit’s phone.”

  A woman demanded, “Who is this?”

  “My name is Asha Meisel. I am Mr. Benoit’s associate. Who am I speaking with, please?”

  “Hold a moment.” The phone was cupped or muted. Asha waited.

  Luke asked, “Who is it?”

  “I have no . . .”

  The woman came back on. “Can you put Mr. Benoit on the phone?”

  “He’s driving. Can I take a message?”

  “This is Sarah, Ms. Wright’s aide. Ms. Wright asks if Mr. Benoit can join her . . . Where are you now?”